I can happily say working with Zahava was one of the most profound spiritual journeys I’ve had the good fortune of experiencing in my life.- Diana Ferrante, Women’s Empowerment Leader, Intuitive Advisor

Zahava's work has returned me to the natural state of being my most loving and most beloved self. - Emily Tepper, Receptivity Coach & Craniosacral Therapist

This was exactly what I needed to rebalance myself. I was able to release the week’s stress and gain confidence in being the clear minded and moving bodied me that I want to be. - An overworking teacher

Zahava gave me the nurturing excavation tools to my inner realms that have been yearning to moan, be touched, to be remembered, honored, revered, and celebrated.- Jennifer Maeve

This work not only supported me grounding in my own feminine experience, but it translated into my work as a coach--allowing a new depth of connection with my clients and their own sacred and sexual journeys.- Dana, Certified Life Coach

Thank you for holding and creating such beautiful space for my own feminine to unfold and reveal herself to me through my body.- Elizabeth Joy Mueller, Business Coach & Intuitive Guide

Slowing down… the soul has a different timing. I cannot direct it by the list of events in my calendar. But the more I Ground, I can listen to what is ripe and ready in my soul.

The first retreat in my Sacred Woman Alchemy 6 Month Program was dedicated to a full day of Grounding. I am inspired to share some of it with you here as I witness the impact it has made in our group. Look out NYC, we are about to engage with the Earth on a whole new level!

I am noticing that many of the clients coming to me right now are deeply passionate, high energy, highly intuitive, and that Grounding is important for them to have ease in their physcial, sexual, and financial life. Grounding supports a consistency in their priorities that brings ideas into real actions. Faith is inspiring, but grounded faith is inspiring and accountable.

I remember that several years into my “shamanic” and energy trainings I started studying bioenergetics with Teeni Dakini. She pointed out how many trainings explore the advanced energy skills without first mastering basic grounding. My life has not been the same since. Thank you, Teeni!

Grounding is a state that becomes easier to access the more we practice. In fact, it’s worth noting that some things like drugs, alcohol, compulsive sex can feel enjoyable and the more we engage them, the more we want more of them. Now with Grounding, it may take a while to really drop in when we start. But once we learn this new state, it takes less and less to access this rejuvenating state. You know the feeling when you are running around the city in rush hour and you feel hungry, you have to pee, and then you finally get to your doorstep, and you are HOME. Imagine if we could feel at home in our body at any time. This is Grounding.

Nobody can tell you what it feels like to be Grounded. Each of us has a unique felt sense of Grounding, and it can change from time to time. Often when my clients experience Grounding for the first time they have a lot of uncomfortable sensations that their body has been waiting to communicate with them. I consider Grounding energetic hygiene. Think what you might discover if you clean your room for the first time in a few years.

While it can seem safer to tune out and disassociate, especially in response to trauma, we are actually the most safe when we are present in the sensations of our body here now.

Grounding is the foundation for cultivating attention and intention. In this information age, especially for those of us living in an urban setting, it is revolutionary. The things we can collectively envision and transform will be completely different in a Grounded society. The trauma’s we can release from our bodies, and the pleasure we can be present for in our lives will be on a whole new level. I have been hearing that we collectively are becoming more intuitive. If this is true, we need the skills to integrate in our physical being, relationships, and actions this new “download” of energy and information.

Our relationship to the Earth will become an embodied experience, rather than a strategy we sometimes think about when a “natural disaster” hits.

This is the subtle revolution.

Image by Irene Dowd from Taking Root to Fly

As the founder of Love Making Dances, I am interested in how we need to stand on the Earth together to evolve the legacy of love and sexuality. I am struck by the recent statistics demonstrating a rise in c-sections and breech babies resulting from the computer posture our mama’s have today. This trend in major surgery upon the birthing of the next generation has stemmed from the narrowing of our pelvic cavity as a culture, tucking our tales under in seats at a desk. Fetuses are actually flipping so they have room higher in the torso which leads to a more challenging birthing process. Imagine that when we ground, when we broaden the basin of our pelvis and allow our energy to descend all the way down our legs… not only can babies have space inside us, WE can have space inside us.

Now that was the big picture. I’m going to drop down into a very concrete voice as we venture deep into the soles of our feet.

How can we tell when we are not grounded?

Often we will feel headaches, spacy, tranced out, disoriented in our life. This can feel enjoyable temporarily but then it’s difficult to transition to the next activity after a peak experience. We can also feel a sense of energetic collapse after ungrounded ecstasy. I’ve noticed that without Grounding we can lose a sense of a container and this feeds consumerism and materialism because we lose the felt sense of having and being full.

In the Grounding Training

In the Grounding training we work with the 26 bones of each foot. We venture deep into the architecture of our bones, our breath, and our dynamic relating with gravity. We release tension in the physical body, unclumping and refining our experience of each muscle. We feel and surrender the muscles so they can be supported by the bones. We learn the muscles that habitually come to the rescue to hold us up and redirect that extra energy as they learn to release and trust. Grounding changes the neuromuscular system and the energetic body to be more efficient and supported. It taught me that I had been confusing adrenaline for life force energy.

I feel inspired to share this quote from Anodea Judith whom I have had the pleasure of studying with:

“Many people who cannot find their true path in life have simply not yet found their ground. Sometimes they are busy looking up instead of down, where the feet meet the path…”

To learn about upcoming trainings, online courses, and teleconferences on Grounding and Energy Skills visit www.LoveMakingDances.com. A powerful way to Ground is Esalen Massage, to learn more about this art or schedule a session click here.

In the desert of Tucson, Arizona I walked with Kenneth Ray Stubbs and a small group of amazingly perceptive folks. We had all gathered for a training course in the Sexual Shaman Path. Ray started this morning by reminding us that extraorinary things are always occuring, are actually quite ordinary, it’s just that we don’t often hear people sharing them. I knew this to be true as soon as I heard him say it.

My intention in this blog is to share some of the less shared “extraordinary” experiences of being human. I trust many of us are on similar journies. I’ve been so grateful for the stories and responses to my new blog, and the conversations it has opened. I look forward to sharing more and to hearing the magic that is living in your bodies too!

Often I will journey into orgasmic meditation. The orgasm will root into the basin of my pelvis and spin life energy up through my body. It’s not really through the spine, but in a spineward direction. I have learned when I move from my bones it’s distinctly different than moving through the water of my organs. I have discovered that listening to life energy during orgasm is more of a water listening: a rounder, fuller, reverberatory listening to life energy. The water listening fills the insides of my skin rather than traversing the directionality of my bone-snake-red-blood-cell-hatching spine. This water listening hears the orgasm as it expands to the inner surface of my body and then shifts into a lighter form, one beyond the unit of the individual. The orgasm is simply radiating from a point in space that happens to be the same point where my human form exists, but no longer contains it.

I feel the orgasm reach Her fingers (it’s not always a Her, but this one was) into my gut and only then do I remember how much I can trust. My belly opens. It almost tickles to loosen this constant reflex of holding, harnessing my identity to my snake spine with the deepest layers of my transverse abdominals.

I guide my attention to the Wisdom rather than to the pleasure. The Wisdom speaks through the language of pleasure, rather than on the topic of pleasure. When I ride the Wisdom the pleasure continues. Sometimes my attention shifts to chasing the pleasure, like listening faster than a friend is speaking, waiting for what I want to hear. I squeeze my feeling and my wanting until I remember to ride the Wisdom and my attention starts to expand like my belly.

Then the heart flying begins.

This opening is a wider octive. It is like the first inhale I take when I come to a clearing in the woods and find myself at a moonlit field. This new space inside myself for love feels as endless as the corners of the night sky. The laughter reaches my heart and explodes in slow-silent-motion. My mouth opens and my body does not just feel, but becomes ForGiveness.This is not my orgasm, this is Love. My 88 pounds of body is barely noticed by the Ocean as she rolls her waves into the shore, picking up my toes and planting them again. Yet, it is no less thrilling of a flight for me. This is how I experience waves of Love.”I trust, I trust,” the voice trembles–somewhere between a cry of relief and a celebration. I recognize the voice is coming from the lungs inside my body. We are Wisdom Riding. Once the life energy moves into my Ajna I can trace what is occuring with words that allow me to bring you with me now.

For years I would Wisdom Ride but did not know how to express what was occuring to the world outside my body. I could kiss these digital letters, the gaps they are now bridging!

ON 3? CHOREOGRAPHING ORGASMS?

Yesterday my body gifted me with an amazing surprise. I stood in my temple studio rolling my heels off the Earth, coming onto my toes. I focused my attention into my heart. My arms clapped in front of my heart and opened in a rhythmic 3 beats. In this moment I experienced the deep heart opening I had only before felt during expanded orgasms, tribal weddings, and deep grieving after death.

The immensity of love popped in on the third beat, my mouth opened and I fell to my bed laughing like a young girl who just discovered the doorway to the magical garden I thought was a 4 hour hike from here. Running my hands over my head turning side to side in disbelief, I laughed with waves of joy. This is the joy I felt seeing Grandma’s face at her 90th surprise birthday party.

I used to clear the screen of my awareness when joy flooded me. It felt like what I imagine my desktop experiences when I click the “Spaces” icon on my mac and slide into a new space knowing the clutter of my projects is hiden in a virtual pocket one click away. But now, there is a trust that does not need the messes and challenges to disappear for me to feel it. It is all here, the alarm clock for work that will go off in 13 hours, the death of my parents years into the future… it is all here with me as I feel this joy.

Returning from Ceremony with my sisters, I am overflowing with Gratitude. On the snow dusted grass, at the edge of Lake Joseph, we gathered for 24 hours, a full moon and sun cycle to share our gifts. The Shift has started. Looking into each others eyes, harmonizing, shimmeying, storytelling, meditating, mmmm….and the kitchen, Goddess! The kitchen overflowing with more delicious roots, berries, lentils, salads, chocolates, berries… than we could eat. We have such gifts, our intution is ripe, our voices clear, we are ready. Our histories are blessing us more and more as we bring understanding and love to the same stories that used to torment us. Thank you Queen GodIs for helping me hear this tonight.

I return home to my sex meditation under the orange waning moon. Today I have heard stories from wombs ready to release traumas and energies no longer serving. As I spread my legs, freshly bathed, I focus my mind on a pleasure prayer.

God, Goddess, may this pleasure spill up my spine and runneth over from my heart and breasts. May the universe experience its deepest pleasures through my human form. May this joy set the frequency for my life. May this laughter and ecstasy cleanse me. May this sex purify me and my Sisters. May this fullness fill our holes. Love, love is being made. May we see love, hear love, be love. I am making love out of the form that is my body. Thank you Spirit, oh thank you for making us life creating. Thank you for making us Life, creating. This life force swelling in my yoni, in my third eye, may it widen the straw of our love. May it awaken any parts of us that are not turned on, so we may be trully grateful for life.

I bow to the sex in me, it is Spirit, it is Creator of life, love, healing. I am trembling. Sex appeal is Life Appeal. May my capacity to feel this full, this happy, this nourished expand in my life as it is now in my body. Each inhale is opening me. Sisters, our wombs are the Source of our Healing, our wombs are Source in human form. These are the portals through which ancestry is brought onto the Earth, when we touch them with devotion we are touching Spirit.

The moment after each of these, we often feel a deep release and peace. They are all forms of vibration…holding on, letting go, holding on, letting go until we really let go. They are all bridges into the involuntary nervous system.

In Orgasm the physical body literally has a spasm through the musculature of the pelvic floor and the womb flutters. In deep grieving and belly laughter the diaphragm contracts and releases with rapid energy and breath. In muscle spasm the muscle contracts and releases and contracts until it surrenders and lengthens. We surrender to the trembling and our voluntary nervous system stops controling the process.

We can have a consciousnessgasm too! Just before our awareness expands we can feel disorientation. My whole life I thought it was hard to make money, wait I can make money? no it’s hard, no wait there are lots of successful passionate people….and then our reality surrenders and the beliefs expand.

What I’ve noticed in the last decade of supporting people through physical and spiritual transformation is that before the transformation there is a vibration. It may not feel good, transformation as much as we seek it does not always “feel” good while it’s happening. But then afterwards there is an expansion!

In the last six months I went to study with Peter Levine, international trauma healing expert and creator of “somatic experiencing.” I also trained with a group of dance therapists on healthy embodiment for trauma survivors. In both of these professional development settings the theme of vibration, trembling, shaking emerged.

Animals do not retain trauma in their systems. Ok, imagine we’re field mice and we gather for dinner. I’m not going to be sitting there petrified telling you, “wow, I almost died 3 times today there was a huge hawk overhead and he came swooping down and I think I’m never going out to the field again!” No, animals tremble and shake until the fear moves through their nervous system and they continue living. Somewhere in our great human evolution we interrupted this process.

So while I was at these trainings with trauma specialists I kept asking why don’t we shake each day and rinse out our nervous system?! Do we have to wait for a trauma? And they were intrigued. Now, this is not new in other cultures where drumming and shaking is a daily practice.

As a yoga teacher and dancer I’ve noticed that a lot of folks try stretching but they are still tight. Sometimes deep stretches actually make them more tight. Recently I saw a rolfer and she was surprised to hear that I’ve been dancing intensely for 30 years and have no injuries. I mean dancing 2-8, sometimes 12 hours a day, and no injuries. She let me know that most dancers and yogis she works on have a lot of chronic injuries and I started to wonder what my body learned and how I can share it with others.

Shaking! Every day I put on music and I shake and let it rattle my breath and recreate my body on a cellular level. Really deep shaking so that sounds come from my throat, the world around me becomes blurry, every part of my body is in motion. Then I localize the vibration and literally shimmey down my legs inside of the hamstring stretchs, IT stretches, inner thigh stretches…I tremble. I remember when I worked with Anodea Judith, a pioneer in chakra health, that energy can move more deeply through a vibrating leg than one with contracted muscles. Later when dancing with Egyptian Priestess, Leslie Zehr, the same theme came up.

So I have started to teach vibration inside of yoga poses. I’m reframing the goal, it’s not so focused on physical flexibility as much as charging the energy through a muscle and oxygenating the tissue. The muscle contracts, releases, contracts….and then transforms. In fact sometimes a really limber body has the hardest time finding this shaking. But the shaking actually repairs, heals, and strengthens our embodiment. It prepares us for what Peter Levine describes as trauma proofing. I would say it integrates the soul body into the physical body so we can live at ease and playfully in a present body.

I’m thrilled to be sharing this approach in my classes and private sessions. I’d love to hear about your experiences with this process too! What are you noticing in your bodies, with your clients, and students?

On Sept 6, 2012, I had the honor dancing Swing Us Sky Rain(bow) at the American Dance Guild Performance Festival. The piece was choreographed by Shani Collins-Achille and focused on breaking the generational cycle of domestic abuse.

Shani facilitates women’s circles for empowerment and this was the perfect intersection of the healing and performing we are here to create. When the lights come up I am the only one laying on the ground, representing those women who have fallen. My 5 sisters are walking softly around me dropping rose petals with compassion and starting the first moves of a dance that will ignite all of us into our fierceness.

During tech week I had the honor of facilitating our cast to get more connected to the work and to each other. The piece centered on Ursula Rucker’s poem, The Return of Innocence Lost (see below.) The dancers were so strong, so embodied, so passionate during this sound scape.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWlY-W6X_w8&w=320&h=266]

As we sat in circle preparing to share this work at the Alvin Ailey Theatre I shared this dedication:

For the women who have only known this

For the women who used to know this

For those of us healing our ancestries through the revolution of self love,